苹果用户高人一等吗？

    经验丰富的科技记者丹•莱昂斯成为了美国知名科技博客ReadWrite的新任主编。或许是为了吸引眼球，他于周二发表了一篇文章，抨击苹果（Apple）在美国移动产品市场的领先地位只是阶级偏见所致。他说，苹果之所以保持领先，是因为其购买者希望自己能比使用谷歌安卓（Google Android）的下层民众更有优越感。

    这有点像是用来增加点击率的幌子，但是也不意味着莱昂斯仅仅是在故意激起争议（“链接诱饵”和“毫无价值”并不总是能划上等号）。看起来他真的相信自己的理论：

    ……苹果和它在美国的追随者不单单批评安卓手机，还批评安卓用户，把他们描绘成没受过教育、贫穷小气、“品味”庸俗的（“品味”这个词是果粉们的最爱）社会下层人士。他们买不起苹果产品，因此愿意接受低价的仿冒产品。

    莱昂斯以撰写苹果相关文章著称。为了证明自己的观点，他从网上到处搜寻那些对安卓用户出言不逊的博客和Twitter用户。当然，如果上网仔细搜索，可以找到对任何事都出言不逊的人。不过，他几乎所有的例证都来自大多数人从没听过的Twitter用户和博客作家。其中一些人把安卓用户称作“贫民”，莱昂斯明确表示，这就是苹果在美国保持领先的原因（而安卓在全球市场都保持着领先）。

    莱昂斯的言论中倒是有那么一点事实：安卓系统的质量在很大程度上已经赶上了苹果的iOS系统，许多安卓手机足以和iPhone匹敌，甚至更出色。除了技术规格这类纯粹的客观标准，顾客经常更多根据自己的想法做出购买决定。通常情况下，他们会购买与自身世界观和个性相符合的产品，尽管这些购买决定并不是最理性的。梅赛德斯-奔驰（Mercedes-Benz）、劳力士（Rolex）和无数其他产品都是利用这种现象发的家。

    但如果拔高这种现象，把苹果产品的用户称作一群怀有阶级偏见的人，那就是歪曲事实了。此外，大多数人选择苹果确实是依据纯粹的客观标准。许多人仅仅是不愿意花费大量时间比较同类产品，而他们知道苹果产品质量很好，于是就买了。莱昂斯自己也说，许多安卓产品不好，另一些则很好。而买苹果呢，至少你清楚你买的是什么。

    许多情况下，顾客已经拥有苹果电脑一类的产品，所以希望继续使用这个生态体系。苹果迷经常被称为“果粉”——莱昂斯也在文中提到了三次。但是大多数苹果迷并不是妄想症患者，也没有教条主义——他们意识到了使用苹果产品带来的问题和麻烦，但是他们做出的理性决策是：所有科技产品都有问题，他们宁愿选择苹果，而不是并不熟悉的其他同类产品。大多数购买苹果产品的人也不是“男果粉”（或“女果粉”——看看男性是如何主宰了这些令人厌烦的科技文化的争论）。“果粉”只占苹果购买群体的很小一部分，却吸引了太多的关注。

    最后，不难发现，维护那些贫困、受压迫的智能手机用户的尊严这种行为充满了讽刺意味。套用一句陈词滥调，如果这真是个什么问题的话，那也是发达国家才有的问题。

    译者：严匡正

    Veteran tech journalist Dan Lyons is the newly installed editor-in-chief of ReadWrite. Perhaps as a way of drawing new attention to the site, he published a diatribe on Tuesday in which he explained away Apple's (AAPL) leadership of the U.S. mobile-device market as being a result of class bigotry. Apple leads because people buy its products to feel superior to the unwashed masses who use Android (GOOG), he says.

    It's an obvious bit of linkbait, but that doesn't mean Lyons is merely trolling ("linkbait" isn't tantamount to "worthless" -- not always). He seems to truly believe his thesis:

    ...Apple and its cheerleaders in the States don't just criticize Android phones; they also criticize Android users, depicting them as low-class people who are uneducated, poor, cheap and too lacking in "taste" (a favorite Apple fanboy word) to pay for an Apple product and instead willing to settle for a low-price knockoff.

    Lyons is well known as a reliable Apple-slapper. To prove his argument, he scoured the Internet to find bloggers and tweeters who have said dumb, insulting things about Android users. Of course, if you scour the Internet, you can find people saying dumb, insulting things aboutanything. But nearly all his examples are from random people on Twitter and bloggers most people have never heard of. Some of them referred to Android users as "ghetto," which Lyons explicitly says is the reason for Apple's leadership of the U.S. market (whereas Android is the leader worldwide).

    There is a tiny nugget of truth to what Lyons is saying: Android has largely caught up to iOS in quality, and many Android phones are as good as, or better than, the iPhone. Consumers often make choices based on considerations other than pure, objective criteria like technical specifications. Often, they buy things that they feel mesh with their worldviews or their personalities, even if those things don't represent the most rational buying decision. Mercedes-Benz, Rolex, and countless other products have counted on this phenomenon for their very existence.

    But to leap from that to basically calling owners of Apple products a bunch of class bigots is to distort reality. Further, plenty of people do choose Apple products based on pure, objective criteria. Many of them simply don't want to spend a ton of time comparing, and they know Apple's products are high quality, so that's what they buy. Lyons himself notes that many Android products are inferior, others are better. But with Apple, at least you know what you are getting.

    In many cases, consumers already own Apple computers, and like them, so they want to stay in the ecosystem. Apple fans are often referred to as "fanboys" -- and Lyons does that here, three times. But most Apple fans aren't delusional and dogmatic -- they recognize the problems and hassles that come with owning Apple products, but have made the rational decision that, since all tech products have problems, they'd rather deal with Apple's than with those of competing products with which they are not as familiar. Most Apple buyers are not "fanboys" (or "fangirls" -- note how male-dominated all these nerdy, technocultural arguments are). "Fanboys" make up a tiny segment of the Apple-buying population, and they get way too much attention.

    Finally, it's hard not to recognize the irony of standing up for the dignity of poor, downtrodden smartphone owners. To apply the cliche, this is a First World problem if there ever was one.